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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Bill Press
Something important happened this week: Republican leaders in
Don't knock it. This is progress. We know what they're against: anything President Obama is for. He's for tax breaks for small business; they're against 'em. He's for extending unemployment benefits; they're against it. He's for emergency funds to states for keeping cops, firemen, teachers, and nurses on the job; they vote no.
As Vice President Joe Biden observed, "I know what the Republicans are against. I have no notion of what they're for." Well, now we do. As articulated by Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, they are for extending George Bush's tax cuts to the top 2 percent of American taxpayers. And that singular priority speaks volumes about the intellectual poverty of the
After all, the wealthiest of the wealthy have already enjoyed an undeserved free ride for 10 years, gobbling up a huge tax break that could easily have paid for universal health care or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Making those tax breaks permanent, or even extending them for another 10 years, is bad public policy.
As payback to major campaign donors, Bush forced his tax cuts through early in his presidency by means of "reconciliation" in the
Not so fast. President Obama supports extending the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans, those making
According to the independent Tax Policy Center, extending tax cuts for the rich would cost an additional
Not only have Republicans made pimping tax cuts for the rich their number one issue, they do so with a set of lies that only George W. Bush could love: this is no time for raising taxes; there's no need to worry about the deficit; letting Bush tax breaks expire will hurt small business; and extending tax breaks to the wealthy will actually create jobs. No, no, no, and no.
First, a reality check. No matter how many times Boehner and McConnell say the opposite, allowing the Bush cuts to expire does not amount to a tax increase. It simply means the 10-year tax privilege enjoyed by the privileged few will end, as the law states, and their tax rate will return from today's top 35 percent (which few pay, anyway) to 39.6 percent -- but only on income more than
And, no doubt, that'll save taxpayers a lot of money. Most people don't understand that a tax cut is actually a government expense, which we have to pay for somehow. Republicans would simply pile that
Equally hypocritical are Republican claims that ending tax cuts for the rich would hurt small business. As Vice President Joe Biden said this week, that's "a bunch of malarkey." Only 3 percent of small businesses make more than
Their final argument about creating new jobs is the most absurd of all. Just look around you. If tax cuts for the wealthy really create jobs, where are they? Instead, under George W. Bush, America lost 8 million jobs.
Forget their twisted logic. In the end, it boils down to this: middle-class Americans need a tax cut. The top 2 percent of Americans don't.
Available at Amazon.com:
The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy
The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics
Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
AMERICAN POLITICS
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